]> http://www.laborradio.org/taxonomy/term/24/0 United Food and Commercial Workers en http://www.laborradio.org/node/9738 <p>Could the third time be the charm for workers at the country’s largest pork processing plant seeking union recognition? Jesse Russell reports:<br /> The United Food and Commercial Workers union has been trying to organize workers at the Smithfield Foods slaughterhouse in North Carolina for more than 15 years. Two prior votes failed to win a majority in favor, but the union has charged that the company used illegal union busting tactics to intimidate workers. The UFCW waged a campaign against the company which included a boycotts and a negative publicity campaign. In response, Smithfield filed a racketeering and extortion suit against the union that was scheduled to go to trial Monday morning.</p> UFCW Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:48:06 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7414 <p>By Jesse Russell</p> <p>A potential of a long dreaded grocery worker strike has been averted in Northern California. 25,000 workers were set to walk off the job at Safeway Supermakerts if contract negotiations broke down. The company agreed to a new four-year contract with the union. According to a press release from UFCW local 8 President Jacques Loveall the agreement amounts to substantial ''pay increases, avoids employee premiums for medical benefits and protects pension and benefits." The contract was approved one day after the previous contract expired.</p> UFCW Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:16:23 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7180 <p>After 36 years, management at Kroger grocery stores could be bagging groceries once again. Jesse Russell reports:</p> <p>The 11,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1099 are prepared to walk off the job at midnight on Friday if there is no new movement in contract talks. The union represents workers at Kroger grocery stores in Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Ohio, and northern Kentucky and are at a stalemate with the company over health care, wages, and pensions. The union is standing strong on a demand for a fully funded pension plan, one of the bigger issues holding up contract negotiations.</p> UFCW Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:29:22 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7094 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Food and Commercial Workers says it won’t be bullied by a lawsuit filed against the union by Smithfield Foods. The suit accuses the union of conducting a public smear campaign to injure Smithfield economically with the goal of getting the company to recognize the union. The UFCW says the suit is baseless. The union for years has waged a union organizing campaign at Smithfield. The UFCW says it’s well documented that Smithfield has abused the law in its treatment of workers for more than a decade. The UFCW says Smithfield is using what it calls this frivolou</p> UFCW Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:41:47 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7063 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Smithfield Foods has broken off talks with the United Food And Commercial Workers union on finding a fair and free process for workers to vote for a union. Pro-union workers there say they’re disappointed by the company’s action. The workers say thousands of them signed petitions asking for union representation without the company threats and abuses of past union elections.</p> UFCW Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:25:33 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6989 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Steel Workers says almost 9,000 retirees, spouses and surviving spouses will get lump-sum payments of up to $600 this year from a health benefits trust fund. The fund was established for former employees of Kaiser Aluminum when Kaiser went bankrupt. The benefit is about equal to $50 monthly Medicare Part B premiums. The trust fund was set up in 2004 to restore prescription drug coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees. The retirees were represented by the USW, the UAW, United Food and Commercial Workers and the International Association of Machinists.</p> IAM UAW UFCW USW and PACE Sun, 07 Oct 2007 15:54:58 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6891 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The UFCW sponsored a Town Hall Forum on immigration issues in Chicago that was critical of the way the federal immigration enforcement agency, known as ICE, conducts workplace raids. Sonia Mendoza is a U.S. citizen rounded up by ICE at Swift and Company in Texas. She says hundreds of workers were held incommunicado without being able to eat, call family or go to bathrooms.</p> <p>{Mendoza]: “We understand that ICE agents, you know, they have to do their job. Why did they have to herd us up like cattle, just sit there? We were like cattle in a cattle pen, because we couldn’t get out, we couldn’t drink water, we couldn’t do nothing.”</p> UFCW Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:01:02 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6806 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Food and Commercial Workers is suing the government to block mass workplace immigration raids the union says violated the rights of thousands of U.S. citizen workers. UFCW spokesman Scott Frotman.</p> <p>[Frotman]: "They held and detained U.S. citizens for hours on end, depriving them of access to attorneys, depriving them of access to bathrooms, depriving them of access to phones to call their families."</p> <p>The UFCW wants an injunction blocking the kinds of workplace immigration raids that happened at Swift &amp; Company in December, when more than 10,000 documented U.S. citizens were forcibly held for hours at work.</p> UFCW Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:42:56 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6698 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Hundreds of workers joined by celebrities and a variety of social change organizations are bringing petitions to Smithfield Foods' shareholders meeting today. They're asking to meet with the company to work out a fair process to let workers choose whether or not they want a union. Terry Slaughter is a worker at Smithfield's Tar Heel, North Carolina hog processing plant.</p> <p>[Slaughter]: "We just want to be heard. We really want to actually talk to these people. We want to get into a conversation where we can actually tell them what we feel, how it goes on. Because they're not even tryin' to hear us. They really don't care about the workers who are making the money for them. These people out there are killin' themselves for Smithfield and they're getting nothing in return."</p> UFCW Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:32:29 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6668 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Food And Commercial Workers union says immigration raids in St. Paul and Lumberton, North Carolina this week demonstrates once again the failure of the U.S. immigration system. The UFCW says according to eyewitnesses ICE agents forced women to leave their children, arresting workers in the dead of night. The UFCW says these raids are no substitute for comprehensive immigration reform. The union believes they are a tragic form of political theater that devastates communities, breaks up families and defiles fundamental American values.</p> UFCW Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:19:39 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6551 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>About forty percent of the more than 5,000 workers at Smithfield Foods, the Tar Heel North Carolina hog processing plant, walked out of the plant this week to protest lack of clean drinking water. Despite a heat advisory, it took three hours for workers to get water. Workers at Smithfield have long agitated for a union and improved working conditions at the plant.</p> UFCW Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:28:39 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6502 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Smithfield Foods workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers union at the hog processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina have agreed to an NAACP call to meet with the company in a new effort to resolve long-standing issues. Smithfield has a long history of anti-union illegal actions, including beating, intimidating , threatening, illegally firing and using racial epithets against workers. If Smithfield is willing to do it, the workers will try to work out a fair process that safeguards workers’ rights in a new union election at the company.</p> UFCW Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:30:01 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6401 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>65,000 southern California grocery workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union have won their fight for affordable health care and living wages. The UFCW’s Mike Shimpock represents the workers.</p> <p>[Shimpock]: “This is a clear victory for grocery workers and middle class workers in southern California and across the United States. I don’t think the markets were ready for the resolve of our members. Nor were they ready for the reaction of the public, which was a critical portion in us being able to negotiate this agreement. We had over 50,000 people sign pledge cards and petitions saying if there was some kind of job action they wouldn’t shop at these markets.”</p> UFCW Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:22:29 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6395 <p>By Leilani Albano</p> <p>After six months of negotiations, Southern California supermarket workers with Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs stores say they are tired of waiting.</p> <p>Since March 5, the region’s 65,000 supermarket employees have worked without a contract. Although they say they don’t prefer it, they say they are willing to strike, if they do not sign a new contract soon. Leilani Albano has more on the story.</p> <p>************************************************************************<br /> After months at the negotiating table, grocery workers earlier this month, threatened to walk out of labor talks for good.</p> UFCW Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:55:56 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6340 <p>Grocery stores and union representatives were talking again on Monday, but a source close to the talks says the union is frustrated and weighing possible strike action. Jesse Russell reports:</p> <p>By Jesse Russell</p> <p>After five days to cool off, representatives of Albertson’s, Ralph’s, Vons and the United Food and Commercial Workers all sat down to continue slow going contract negotiations. Prior to the break union members had given UFCW leadership permission to call a strike and a source close to the talks says the union is “done talking” and is now apprehensively considering the strike option. The Southern California grocery strike and lockouts of 2003 lasted nearly five months and workers went months without pay. The supermarkets claim to have lost a billion dollars in sales and the union ended up meeting nearly all of the chains’ demands. A great deal of blame was hoisted onto the AFL-CIO who allegedly failed to mobilize a substantial solidarity effort and pushed UFCW to call off the strike due to approaching elections. At the crux of the current negotiations is a wage proposal that only includes raises for the top pay scale and the introduction of a third tier of workers that would earn less than the second tier workers. Union officials have also said the chains are risking bankruptcy of the union’s healthcare trust fund by proposing a reduction in contributions. The union must give a 72-hour notice before strike lines can go up and union members are reportedly already at work making up picket signs and enlisting captains. </p> UFCW Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:26:15 -0700